


persikovyy.bb

by OrsFri



Series: eve of the hour [4]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, M/M, Other, relationship introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 04:44:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15429303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrsFri/pseuds/OrsFri
Summary: The thing about love is that it always hurts.





	persikovyy.bb

**Author's Note:**

> More eve of the hour bullshit.
> 
> Just in case, Liz is Hungary, and Mads is fem!Canada. This happens after the existing three parts of the installment.

The thing about love is that it always hurts.

( _ “I - I just - argh I don’t know how to say this, but it’s -” _

_ “Is it because you’re gay?” _

_ “What? What, no. I’m - we’re not going to be a fucking cliché, ok?” _ )

It hurts so fucking bad. 

-

Some retro shit from Spotify; he tosses off his earphones and let it continue playing in the background. It’s summer, so it’s rainy: the sky outside the window is dull and grey and wet with humidity, heavy like it’s choking. He sits on his bed because he never bothered to get out of it. 

He’s waiting for something, but he doesn’t know what. His jaw is sore - the bruise is still healing. He pokes at it, because he can, and because the pain grounds him, grounds him into reality, into living, into existing. Closes his eyes because the world feels like it’s ending and he is caught in a slow decay, except his life has never truly began so how can it end when there’s no beginning? Huh? Anyone gonna try and reason it out to him? Oh wait, he’s got no friends, he’s all alone, right now, everyone’s got something better to do and here he is, wasting his fucking self away because he’s fucking trash.

He just wants to decompose. He just wants to  _ evaporate.  _ It must be nice being a plant: you live, you grow, you die, you decompose. No thoughts, no choices, just sunlight and water. How nice.

_ Oh my fucking god I’m such an embarrassing mess - _

-

_ “Can you even feel anything? Or is this all a  _ joke  _ to you? You know what, you’re a fucking  _ toxic  _ person to be around, you know that?” _

_ “Look, sweetheart -” _

_ “Don’t  _ sweetheart  _ me, Gilbert. Just - just stop.” _

-

A long time ago, when he’s still dating this darling from his high school class, he got drunk and kissed Ivan.

He told Ivan he doesn’t remember this. This isn’t true. Gilbert remembers, but he doesn’t want it to mean anything. He never wants his relationships to mean anything, in the end - half-loves and full-loves and relationships are not his  _ forté,  _ ok? He’s never been in relationships much because it takes out a chunk of him, rips his heart apart and spills it like warm blood on hot sand, and he fucks up every single one of them because he can’t give what they want.

Also, he’s still in the closet then, but that doesn’t fucking matters now.

Ivan’s on a trip back to Russia.  _ Family,  _ Ivan explains, and kisses him on the temple. Sunshine on ice, Gilbert feels that Ivan is, is cold sunshine on burning ice, and grammar is an incoherent piece of shit unable to connect his fragmented thoughts together. He dreams in pieces and wakes up angry at dream-versions of people he knows and that is  _ so unfair, what the fuck, Gilbert, they didn’t fucking say that, you dreamt it.  _

It’s so easy to pine and forgot to love. He walks in dreams as he stumbles into the kitchen to pour out a glass of orange juice. Sour and sharp in his tongue, this is a prep course to eventually swallowing acid -  _ oh fuck your brain, Gilbert, fuck it to Mars - _ and he leaves the mug on the table, he’ll refill it when he finally gets himself together to make himself lunch anyway.

Ivan’s patient with him, he knows. Ivan’s patient because he’s gotten half-loves all his life, and Gilbert is  _ stunted,  _ in some ways, feelings swallowed down and squeezed from existence and never fully capable of love except when love turns back around like a multi-headed hydra and rips his lungs out. 

He misses Ivan. Fuck.  _ Fuuuuuck. _

Smushes his own face together. Wince as he irritates the bruise too much. This is what you get when you go looking for fights at bars because you start to feel like you don’t exist, because you’re just stuck in your own head, unstuck from reality, looping in circles dreaming in fiction, Gilbert is a fucking mess who does not know how to love someone who loves him but knows how to love someone who doesn’t.

Then there is Ivan.

Gilbert does not know what to feel.

He returns to the bedroom, changes before putting on his headphones and heads to the washroom to freshen up. Grabs his backpack and tosses a bottle of water and his wallet and his phone, even though no one’s going to text him, and if he gets calls then it’s only when shit’s really bad.

His brain goes on autopilot, and he’s at Ivan’s apartment. Unlocks the door to feed Ivan’s fat fucking cat. Gilbert doesn’t even likes cat - dog person through and through,  _ please let the neighbour’s bullmastiff eat it  _ \- but Nastya will probably stare the bullmastiff into submission. Gilbert knows. Gilbert has seen Nastya stare down a  _ chihuahua,  _ and chihuahuas are fucking rabid. 

Waters Ivan’s plants, because Ivan can be strangely functional. He sets up a sleep timer before leaving the television running, and leaves. Stands at the street staring at nothing until a friendly storekeeper comes out asking  _ are you ok? Do you need help to cross the road or?  _ and Gilbert jokes about waiting for a date before making his escape as soon as possible.

He returns home and pulls out his earphones so that he can blast the music instead. Thinks about calling Ludwig, just to see how he is, but that’s just so  _ uncharacteristic  _ of him. Also, if he needs to put in more energy into pretending to be the caricature that everyone thinks he is, he’s going to cut off his ear just to be contrary. Or maybe that’s playing into the mad reckless character that everyone sees him as too. Gilbert doesn’t know. Gilbert doesn’t fucking care,  _ god, whoever thought it’s a good idea to leave him alone? _

He grabs his unwashed mug and tosses it at the wall. The crash sounds distant, a world away, not loud not  _ destructive  _ enough, before it splatters across the floor. It is not satisfying at all, and Gilbert breathes once, twice, thrice, a millennium and an eternity, and gets to cleaning.

-

 

“Gilbert, look,” Ivan says over Skype, holding up his baby niece. “She’s so cute.”

The toddler stares wide-eyed at him, and then babbles excitedly as she wriggles her arms. She’s  _ insanely  _ cute. Gilbert wants to pinch her button nose. “Hey, kid.”

Ivan’s vibrant as he blows a raspberry against the left cheek of his niece. Her giggle is sweet and vibrant and delightful, like peaches in the peak of summer. “Her name is Alisa.” 

“Hey Alisa,” Gilbert amends dutifully, and snorts when Alisa pukes milk all over Ivan. Ivan wrinkles his nose, but there is a certain familiarity and apathy as he wipes Alisa’s mouth.

“Give me a few minutes to get her sorted out, ok?” Ivan turns and calls off-screen - for Alisa’s mother, probably. Gilbert vaguely wonders which of Ivan’s crazy relatives are responsible for a child as sweet as Alisa, but children tend to be mischievous sweethearts until they grow up and develop a mean streak. Gilbert blames society.

Ivan comes back in a new tee. His face is ruddy and he looks more vivacious than he ever does in  _ years.  _ Gilbert does not know what to think about that. “Sorry for that. Babies are messy.”

Alisa is  _ lovely,  _ but Gilbert doesn’t say that. “It’s fine.” He wipes the webcam. His webcam has been broken and dirty for ages, and it would normally be a bitch to deal with, except Gilbert has a bruise on his face and he’s borrowed Liz’s concealer to temporarily cover it up but there’s only so much her sheer coverage can do for a bruise  _ this size.  _ “How’s things on your side?”

“Good.” Ivan turns to smile over his shoulders. “Really good. It feels kinda weird to see things working out so well.”

“But this is the, the maternal side of the family, right?”

“Yeah.” Ivan pulls his chair closer in. “I guess they've always been more understanding than the paternal side.”

“Which means Ivan is still disowned from the other half of his family for coming out gay and that's - “And they have cuter kids too.”

Ivan laughs, hearty and carefree, and it does  _ things  _ to Gilbert’s stomach. “I thought you don't like kids?”

“Wrong: I don't like bad parenting, and I am  _ bad  _ with kids.” He's better with older ones that are easily impressed with dinosaur trivia and stupid stunts.

Oh, and don't forget precocious kids like Ludwig once was who'll grimly take it upon themselves to  _ reverse babysit  _ him. That kind of kid, Gilbert can entertain for  _ hours.  _

“Mmhmm, then maybe you ought to complain less when Liz tells you to watch her kid while she runs off to stuff down an energy bar.”

“Oh fuck no - her son is the  _ devil. _ Not the incarnate, the  _ original  _ one.”

Ivan masks his chuckle with a cough. “I'll tell her you say that.”

“Do it - she agrees.”

This time Ivan can't suppress his bark of laughter. “I’ll tell that to Roderich, then.”

“Fuck, don’t do that.” Gilbert wets his lips. “Look, I’m not supposed to be telling anyone, but there are some, uh, problems with their marriage. They’re currently separated.”

“What? But they married last year -”

What do you know? Love is transitory and love  _ hurts,  _ and marriage always  _ always  _ exposes the worse of a person, and their marriage has been fragmenting for a long time. Gilbert shrugs. “Relationships don’t always manage to work through life changes.”

Ivan exhales sharply. “But I thought they were happy.”

“Roderich has never been able to give Liz what she wants.” This is a fact that everyone can see and that to which Liz has willingly blinded herself. Many women are like this, in a way: they grow up wanting their own grand romance so much that they forget that even the grand romances of the movies eventually end. Gilbert thinks of Mads, and he says, “It’s better that she gets out of it now rather than later.”

“Maybe,” Ivan agrees, “but I thought that they will have a happy ending. Happily ever after.”

“Happily ever after,” Gilbert echoes. “Yeah, I thought so too.”

-

After he got together with Ivan, two things happen:

One. Ludwig calls for the first time. This is a coincidence, and they never managed to talk about Ivan until the second time when he does and Gilbert blurts, “By the way, I have a boyfriend.”

“Oh.” This is Ludwig’s shocked voice. It takes Skills™ and years of living in the same house to be able to tell it apart from his other I-don’t-want-to-seem-rude-so-I’m-keeping-my-voice-as-flat-as-possible voices. “When was this?”

“Two months ago.”

“Oh.” This is his thoughtful voice. “I never knew you were…”

“I never knew too.”

“Oh.” Then this is the awkward voice. There is white noise on the other end, a muffled _thank you_ as a bartender chirps about a _triple shot espresso._ “Congratulations. Do I know him?”

“Yeah, it’s Ivan.”

Ludwig chokes on his coffee. This reaction does not need commentary. “I’m sorry?” he manages when he calms down.

“I’m dating Ivan.”

“I thought - never mind.” The sound of chairs being pulled. “How is he?”

“He’s been better.”

“I see.”

And that’s the end of it, for a while. It went better than expected, and the relationship has not combusted in flames, and Ludwig still occurs once in a while, so there’s - that’s it, really. Things are good.

And then there’s two: he meets his ex.

He’s never had much relationships - he can count them on _one hand_ \- but none of them ever ended well. It says something about him, he thinks. He tries not to think too hard.

This one, luckily for him, is one of the better breakups. She wrings her hand like she does not know how to react, and they stand on the pavement for too long until Gilbert awkwardly offers, “Do you want to grab a cup of coffee?”

“Sure,” she answers hurriedly, “sure, why not?”

They sit at a table by the window, and they both stare down at their cups for the longest time until she clears her throat. “How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

“Me too.” She takes a sip. Gilbert does not. “Are you, uhm. Are you seeing anyone?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, that’s good,” she hurriedly adds. “I’m actually meeting my boyfriend here later, and if it’s going to make things uncomfortable, I thought -”

“Mads,” Gilbert interrupts, “it’s fine. It won’t be an issue at all.”

She deflates. “I’m worried,” she admits, “when we broke up, I thought, I thought that I was unfair to you, that maybe I shouldn’t have dated you because I know what I am getting myself into, and that when it ended like that, we both got hurt, and that’s so, so not fair.”

“You are not wrong to get out of a relationship that’s hurting you.”

“I know,” she insists, “but I am still sorry. Maybe in another life, it could have gone another way that’s less - I’m sorry.”

Gilbert sighs. He finally drinks his coffee. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“I do,” says Mads, “I know you aren’t the man I need, but I still wanted to believe that it could work. That was selfish. I’m sorry.”

And isn’t that the core of the issue, after all, that Gilbert can never be what people wanted, what people needed? Which - ok, stop, what sappy bullshit is he thinking, to care about what _other people_ want or need?  

“Guess I’m sorry too.” Gilbert kneads between his eyebrows. “All the best for to you and your boyfriend, yeah?”

She folds her arms on the table and rubs above her elbows. She’s smiling. “Thanks.”

And that’s it, that’s how Gilbert does relationships. Let go let go let go and stop hurting. Let go.

-

( _ “I thought it would be harder for you to let me go,” Mads has said, at the coffee shop, a long time ago before they meet again. _

_ “I’m sorry,” Gilbert mutters, and can’t bring himself to meet her eyes. _

_ Mads simply shakes her head. “I didn’t know what I expected.” There are tears brimming in her eyes; Gilbert wants to scream. “For a clean end, or for you to actually  _ give a reaction. _ ” _

_ “I’m sorry.” _

_ “Does sorry even mean anything to you?” Mads hisses, and stands up to leave. _

_ Gilbert waves over a waiter to clear his untouched cup of coffee away. The foam art is a gorgeous, layered heart, dark cocoa center like a hollow in his chest. _ )

Gilbert does not pick up Ivan because he simply… forgets. Forgets time, forgets to keep track of the date, forgets what day of the week it is. He doesn’t have a car, anyway, and Ivan has a thing for flights with weird hours because he has a strangely strong immunity against jet lag and wants to save up the extra bucks. 

Nevertheless. Gilbert still feels like shit when he opens the door to Ivan’s apartment and is startled to find Ivan feeding his cat.

“Huh. You’re back,” he says, and fuck, someone really should stop him from sticking his foot in his mouth.

“Yes.” Ivan’s face does not reveal any emotions. He’s good at that, Ivan - masking emotions. Not in the way that Gilbert does, and not in the way that Ludwig does, much less the way  _ Liz  _ does, except in his very own special way.

_ I missed you,  _ Gilbert doesn’t say.  _ Sorry I fucked up,  _ Gilbert also doesn’t know. “Do you want your key back -”

“No, it’s fine,” Ivan hurriedly answers. “You can keep it.”

“Ok.”

“You spend a lot of time over anyway,” Ivan adds.

That is true. At first, it used to be for work, but after he quit, it’s straight out just. Sex. Somehow Ivan’s place feels a lot less dirty and illicit as compared to if they fuck in Gilbert’s apartment. Ivan likes to blame how sparse Gilbert’s apartment is that results in the general atmosphere that what is supposedly  _ home  _ feels more like a temporary barrack, but Gilbert knows it’s because their house resembles who they are: Ivan always trying to set down roots and find himself friends and family, while Gilbert is always trying to leave, trying to figure out who he is, lonesome but always failing to reach out. 

He pockets the key and flops onto Ivan’s armchair. Cracks a grin because that’s expected of him - caricature. “So, bought any gifts for me?”

“I have some varenye.”

“Berries flavoured?”

“Well, this year we bought bananas and walnuts to mix with it.” Nastya jumps off Ivan’s arms. With a beckoning of his hand, Ivan steps into the kitchen. Gilbert rolls his shoulders and trails along. And alright, there are a few new jars in the refrigerator that Gilbert hasn’t seen during his last few visits. Ivan picks up one tied with a yellow ribbon. “Babushka made it for you because she heard that you’re not a fan of berries.”

“I - yeah, thanks.” He accepts the jar from Ivan. He’s seen Ivan’s Babushka once - Skype is a godsend or a curse, depending on perspective - and she is, to put it lightly, a hell of a woman. Gilbert lowkey thinks that Liz is going to grow old into someone like that. “Have you tasted it?”

“It’s less sweet than the usual varenye.” At that, Ivan snickers. “She has a lot of things to say about that, but I told her that your family has a history of diabetes.”

His family history also has a mixture of obesity, hypertension, high cholesterol, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer - like all other countries in the world in this age of modernisation. However: “Thanks.”

“It’s nothing much.” Ivan smiles. “I think she’s taken a liking to you. She says your swears are very creative.”

That is a result of Nastya suddenly jumping onto his lap and punching a particularly sensitive spot that starts with a  _ d  _ and ends with  _ ick  _ during the same Skype session. “Christ, is that how she sees me now?”

“It’s not that bad.” Ivan moves over to switch on the electric kettle. “My last boyfriend, he accidentally dropped  _ her jar of varenye  _ in front of her. That did not end well.” 

“Ok but did he  _ grovel? _ ”

“He can’t lower his pride enough to do so,” Ivan admits, “I guess that’s the first sign.”

“First sign?”

“That he would be too prideful for the relationship to work out,” Ivan divulges, digging through his box of teabags. “Coffee or tea?”

“Just water, actually.”

“Ok.” He grabs two mugs - it’s ugly and the paint is peeled and Ivan probably got it cheap from the bargain section - and drops the tea bag into one of it. 

Gilbert is suddenly  _ furiously  _ aware that he’s run out of conversation topics. He’s got nothing to say -  _ I spent my whole two and a half weeks being a pathetic waste of space  _ is too fucking miserable.  _ I got into a bar fight because I was bored  _ sounds like he’s trying to vie for attention. But he did nothing else, because he’s a fucking mess, and -

Ivan raises a hand, hovers, and drops it. He peers closer. “What happened to your face?”

Gilbert mentally curses his body’s slow healing period that prevents the bruise from fading away completely. “Nothing much,” he lies, and then figures that ending it there sounds suspicious, embellishes, “look, it’s just fucking stupid, ok? Don’t make me repeat the story.”

Ivan frowns. He reaches out again, and when his thumb rubs at Gilbert’s jaw, Gilbert carefully does not flinch away. “You need to eat more of Babushka’s varenye, then. It’s rich in Vitamin C. I hear that it helps bruises recover faster.”

“You will  _ not  _ conspire to make me eat more berries.”

“It has banana and walnuts in it,” Ivan defenses, and it’s all so domestic that Gilbert fucking  _ can’t,  _ alright? He can’t take this. It’s so sweet and sugary and so perfect like Ivan’s Babushka’s fucking  _ varenye  _ and holy shit,  _ what is he doing?  _ It’s not going to end well. In fact, it’s going to be a fucking trainwreck waiting to happen, and it’ll be worse than it  _ ever has been,  _ because every time Gilbert rips out his heart for someone, it’s never enough, and the more he gives the more he  _ hurts them  _ in the end, he’s got a track record, what is he -

“You’ll help me finish it,” Gilbert bargains, instead.

He doesn’t want this to end,  _ please don’t let it end, please please please,  _ fuck - he’s so pathetic, he wants this  _ so much,  _ but. But when Ivan leaves, will Gilbert ask him to stay? Will he  _ grovel? _  Or is he too prideful like Ivan's ex because that's not the case, at all. __ Because he hasn’t done this in the past, hasn’t done it for Mads and all the other girls, because he dare not be selfish but Ivan is - 

Will he dare beg him to stay? 

“Maybe.” Ivan’s eyes crinkle at the corner. The water kettle ticks off. The water settles, Ivan pours the hot water onto both cups, pours cooler water to chill it down, and holds out his hand for Gilbert’s jar of varenye. “Please?”

Gilbert hands it over. Ivan opens the jar, scoops out a healthy dollop, and plonks it into the tea. Stirs. “Now this is for you.” He hands Gilbert the other mug. “This is for you too, when the sweetness gets too much.” He seals up the jar and put it back into the fridge. “I’ll keep it with me, so that I can make sure you finish it instead of pouring it away into the bin.”

Sweet tea and water to wash it down. If this is a fucking metaphor, Gilbert is going to combust.

Nonetheless, that would have been a, a  _ nice  _ metaphor, he thinks. A nice way to live and handle this relationship, this - whatever this thing with Ivan is. He takes a gulp of the tea. “It’s sweet.”

Ivan laughs, hearty and fond. “Of course it is,” he says, and it’s going to hurt so fucking much when Ivan leaves, but it’s good now, it’s so goddamn  _ good,  _ and that’s all Gilbert wants.


End file.
